Tag Archives: #savory

So my wonderful and ever-loving mother bought me a crockpot when I started the Whole30, and I’ve just now gotten a chance to use it! Hurray!

I’ve been wanting to slowcook something for a while now and was super excited to purchase a chicken a few days ago that I was gonna slowcook the shit out of today.

First, I took the crockpot out of its original packaging.

Then, I rolled up three balls of aluminum foil on the bottom of the pot. Some recipes call for this. The chicken came out delicious and juicy, and I don’t have anything to compare it to, so I would recommend the foil. I then cut up apples (!), carrots, onions and sweet potatoes and throw them on the bottom of the pan. Then I threw on the chicken, took some of the veggies and STUFFED the chicken with it, and then liberally sprinkled sea salt, ground pepper and cinnamon.

Fall really is my favorite time of year and there’s no place like New England in which to experience it! The colors, the foliage, and most of all the food! Yesterday we went apple, pear, peach and plum picking at the Belkin Family Lookout Farms in Natick, MA. I cannot wait to show you what I make with all of my delicious bounty! Already I have a chicken stuffed with apple, sweet potato and onion simmering away in the slow cooker and who knows what wonders will await in the kitchen!

Fallen apples!

Peaches of furi!

Juicy peaches, right this way!

One juicy peach.

Such beautiful colors.

More fallen apples.

Bounty from the day.

Close up of the macouns, asian pears and stanley plums.

Seeds!

Here was finished product #1, breakfast! Yay! Breakfast!

Groundbeef and apple skillet with chicken sausage and apple sauce.

All I had to do was dice 1/2 a small apple and heat in like, 1/2 tblsp. of coconut oil. Then, I added the groundbeef, 1/2 a chicken sausage (pre-made and diced), and skilleted up in some olive oil. I poured it on a plate and added some pre-made organic apple sauce that was a free sample I got at the gym. And serve! Hurrah!

Update! After breakfast, I spent the day sweating over a hot stove to try and make some more delicious fall treats with my copious bounty from yesterdays pick. After going to Whole Foods and picking up some coconut flour, some hazelnut flour, some cardamom and some Vietnamese Cinnamon (I have no idea how this is different from regular cinnamon), I was super siked to try out some of my recipes. I decided to start out with only two:

I started with the pie. Specifically, making the filling, which calls for “ripe” peaches and plums, which should sit for three hours prior to baking, “if you have time.” I didn’t. From the beginning, I was a little skeptical that my fruit was ripe and juicy enough, but really wanted this pie, so soldiered on with the mix. I next started on the pie crust so that my fruit mixture could rest together for at least a few minutes.

Pie crust: is this supposed to look like this?

I then followed the remaining instructions of the recipe exactly as they were, and put the fruit into the pie crust, topped with the remaining crust crumble and baked at 375 for 15 minutes. When the pie came out, it looked like this:

I WILL say, that it looks very good. However, the crust was a little bland and could have used some kind of sweetener. Anyway, I put the pie in the “win” category, considering I never even really made a pie before, and moved on to my muffins.

Ohhhh, the muffins…

So, the recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of almond flour. I, being the genious that I am, did not realize that one could not directly substitute coconut flour for almond flour (which I had run out of during the pie crust and which I PROBABLY should have looked up before moving forward. But, alas.) Thus, I blissfully added 2 1/2 cups of coconut flour to the recipe as it was, and wondered why it looked like I had way more batter than I needed and why was it so dry, like sand? Luckily, I realized this probably wasn’t quite right and decided to look up the coconut flour vs. almond flour ration. Whoops.

So I took half the batter, added a couple eggs and some butter and baked it up (see exhibit 1). The muffins were horrible and tasted like cardboard and I think will make a delicious stuffing to accompany my crockpot chicken! Hurray!

So I took the remaining batter, smartened up, added three eggs, a bunch of butter, some honey and some chocolate chips. I took the remaining streusel from the pie, added butter and brown sugar, TOTALLY de-paleofying these desserts and went for muffin attempt #2 (see exhibit, below). You be the judge.

The batter. Is this supposed to look like this?

Exhibit 1: Sad muffins. =(

Exhibit 2: Hurray!

So, now I know that if you substitute coconut flour for almond flour, you need to either cut way back OR add like four more eggs and a cup of fat. At least I found out before cooking my pear treats (TBD!)

Yum! Breakfast! Everyone’s favorite meal of the day. For breakfast you can have sweet AND savory, and none of the crushing pain of life’s burdens that you’ll feel as the day wears on has sunk in yet so you get to enjoy your meal. Here’s what I’ve been chowin’ down on the since I started eating healthy (that is, variations on eggs, meats, zucchini, sweet potatoes, and fruits).

Now, veggie pancakes are wicked good and even though I’m Jewish, it never occurred to me to regularly make sweet potato latkes for breakfast in the morning. But, it’s super easy! All you need to do is take your fave veg (preferably sweet potato or zucchini), and cut it in half. Use about 1/2 the veg, grate into a bowl, add some diced onion, almond flour (about 1-2 tbsp) and 1 egg. Spice as you’d like (I prefer cinnamon and nutmeg for the sweeter ones, and salt and pepper for the zucchini ones). Fry them in a pan using olive oil. I’ve tried this recipe throwing all different kinds of things in the pancakes: carrot or apple in the sweet potato (sweet!), or spinach and sausage in the zuke (savory)! Now you have a healthy, gluten free, dairy free and sugar free breakfast for you and anyone else.

Exploring the health care crisis through intergenerational conversation between Dr. Bernard Lown, a cardiologist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and his granddaughter Melanie Lown, a communications professional (and modern patient).

Seriously, I would sit and eat goldfish and oreos all day if I had it in my house. (Well pre-paleo I would have) But if it's not good for me, how on earth is it good for my baby?!?! So now, we are living a paleo / primal lifestyle, on a budget, with a baby!